


No Fate But What We Make

by mabus101



Category: Wheel of Time
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-09 07:52:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13477014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mabus101/pseuds/mabus101
Summary: The Wheel of Time has turned and the Third Age has passed.  The prophecies fulfilled, the main characters are now adrift, and the world continues to change.  The last surviving Forsaken , Moghedien, is not as trapped as she seems, and has devised a plot to redrill the Bore and rule forever.  With no guide to the future, who can stand in her way?





	1. Chapter 1

Aviendha shifted on her cushions and tried, as always, not to feel shamed. Her feet had been injured in honorable battle; she had a right to some comforts. She could not make herself believe it, not in front of the apprentices. None of these were Aiel, making it doubly important that they learn not to be soft. 

Nadrine, certainly, might have been taken for Aiel. Her skin was fair, her hair near white. But she had escaped from Ebou Dar, and her ancestors had lived on the other side of the Aryth Ocean for three thousand years and more. Perhaps they had been Aiel, once, but they had forgotten all.

Danon was as dark as Nadrine was pale, her hair curled more tightly than Aviendha had realized was possible. Leafy tattoos wove around the sides of her face. Shara was in chaos, and might be so for decades to come. The Ayyad leadership was dead, their apprentices now owned in truth by the new Sh'boan. Danon was far from the only one to prefer to risk death trying to cross the Waste.

Neither was as strange to Aviendha as Yneth, though she was from the Tower exchange program, with honey brown hair and lightly-tanned skin. She knew Yneth was of Aiel descent, and that she had said after the rings that she meant to stay and become a Wise One. But Yneth was Tuatha'an, what Aviendha would have called a Lost One just five years before. Cadsuane was a hard woman.

No one was sure what would happen to them when they went into the crystal columns. No wetlander ever had, though the time would come very soon. Would they see the Aiel’s history? Their own ancestors’? Would they see nothing? Or simply die? Not that, she hoped; the Amyrlin would surely be displeased.

“Will the Sea Folk be here soon?” Yneth wanted to learn how to work weather. She wanted to learn most things. Aviendha could not fault her.

“They should,” she explained, “but Joramin said there were high seas today. She cannot unleash a storm on Rhuidean to make landfall, or open a small gateway from a tossing ship.” The first time a raker had sailed onto the lake, her people had gaped. And the hundredth, even. But by now the sight of ships was becoming routine, though few would board them yet.

Nadrine frowned. “I suppose there will be no news of the Madlands, then. The Empress, may she…that is, she must not be allowed to raid freely there.” Sea Folk reports of that land had drawn Seanchan ships to hunt marath'damane, and supposedly to bring order.

“We will find some way to oppose her there,” Aviendha said firmly, though she could not imagine how. No one had yet been able to make peaceful contact with the native peoples, a situation that had not changed in three thousand years, even for Tarmon Gaidon. That did not stop the raiders, and it seemed the Power ran strongly there.

Worse was coming, Melaine had told her. Something hidden in that land before the Breaking. But she could not say what, nor whether it would hasten disaster to go there and find out.

“Wise One,” Danon asked, “are you all right?”

Aviendha shook her head. She was not a wetlander; she would not hide her worries unless a Dreamwalker warned her to. “Rand thought to leave the world a better place,” she began, “and in many ways he did. But prophecy has been fulfilled, and now new challenges rise that have not been foretold for thousands of years as those were. I know so little, and must pretend to know so much. As you will have to. Nadrine, what omens have you read in your dreams?”

Nadrine made a small sad face. “Nothing I understand, Wise One. Darkness and blood and great machines of steel.”

“Keep trying.” At least the dreams still held their secrets. The Aiel would find their way. Somehow.


	2. Chapter 2

“Darbinda?” 

Min raised her head with a sigh. Looking at Tuon was rarely pleasant under the best of circumstances, and now…. 

“Knotai says you have seen a great and terrible omen. Why have you not told me of it? You are my Truthspeaker. It js your duty.” 

Min rubbed her temples. Too much wine again last night. Between the image that loomed behind Tuon and the meetings between Rand and her sister-wives, she was spending a lot of her nights like that. 

“Do you seek to bring me failure, Darbinda? Am I that odious in your eyes?” 

Min looked up and raised one eyebrow but said nothing. 

“Have you considered the consequences of your silence, Darbinda? Knotai said….” 

“All right, your Highness!” Tuon’s eyebrows would have vanished into her hair if she had any. “I see a sphere behind you. A smooth white globe. Just that.” 

“Just that. Not the weapon Knotai spoke of.” Tuon’s tone was disapproving, even scornful, but for her or Mat? 

Min closed her eyes again. Her head felt a thousand times too large. “But it is, your Highness. Worse than the Choedan Kal. Old. I don’t know how old, but it feels as if it was ancient when the Forsaken were gleams in their parents’ eyes.” 

“What is it, then? How may I use it?” 

“I’m sorry, your Highness. I have told you what I know.” 

“Strange that this omen should suddenly come to you now. Worse than the Choedan Kal. Older than the Age of Legends. Should I be suspicious, Doomseer?” Tuon put a hand down on the table next to Min’s face. 

Min raised her head slowly, gazing blearily at Tuon. “If it’s just a coincidence, of course you should. If it’s something that couldn’t have happened till after the Last Battle…well, what have you been up to lately, Empress? May you live forever.” 

Tuon considered Min’s face for a moment. “The Empress’ Soe'feia should not drink herself into a stupor, Darbinda. Still, you give me something to consider. Does this weapon threaten us because of my actions in the Madlands? Or could it be something only I can defend against?” 

“It could be, I guess.” Min hadn’t really considered that. She associated Tuon with danger, not safety. “It’s possible.” 

Tuon nodded. “I will contact the High Lady Berelain. She, her husband, and I will organize an expedition. We cannot defend against a disaster we do not understand. Does that seem wise to you?” 

The sphere loomed over Tuon’s head like a vast full moon. Just as it always did, now. No new images blossomed into view. Nothing changed. “I suppose it can’t hurt, Empress, and it does make sense.” Galad would bring the Whitecloaks into it, but the Children of the Light seemed to be growing into their name at last. This might be a good task for them. “Shall I come with you?” 

“You may accompany and advise me, of course. And I think I will bring damane. There are many marath'damane there, and it is long since I was complete.” 

Min sighed deeply, which Tuon chose to ignore. She just hoped the Empress didn’t decide to bring Suffa. Min didn’t think she could endure that even for a day.


	3. Chapter 3

The High Lady Berelain sur Paendraeg contemplated her husband’s hair. Like everything else about him, it was beautiful. And yet….

“Perhaps you would receive fewer harsh stares from the ambassadors if you shaved the sides of your head, Galad.” She herself had embraced the Seanchan fashion the day after Fortuona acknowledged her.

“I cannot raise you to the Blood,” the tiny Empress had said. “You *are* of the Blood. Would that I had been told of you by the Forerunners. We would have landed here and given aid, each to each.”

Galad closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “It is not a haircut that can be maintained by a common soldier, my dear. I will not compromise the allegiance of my men ”

Berelain shrugged and tapped her lacquered fingernails on the arm of her throne. “Fortuona will not understand, but I do.”

Galad grimaced. “I understand your allegiances, my lady wife, but the Empress makes me uneasy. She is everything that made Lothair distrust Aes Sedai…except Aes Sedai. Sometimes I think it was seeing the sul'dam that made my men begin to reconsider.”

Berelain sniffed. She carefully made sure that those who had the spark were smuggled out of Mayene, but she could not avoid the use of sul'dam and keep the Empress’ trust. But Galad had gone to great lengths to reform the Children; of course he could not fully approve.

A Deathwatch Guard entered the room and went to one knee. “The Empress, may she live forever, approaches, High Lady. Make ready.”

Galad quickly glanced over his snow-white clothing, though of course it was immaculate as always. Berelain tried to put her worries out of her mind, but four years had passed since their wedding and the Empress still had not approved her raising of Galad to the Blood. Fortuona did not dither about anything of importance; if she had not decided on a matter, she had serious questions about how to proceed.

The Empress swept into the room, trailed by Mat Cauthon and Min Farshaw. Mat, as always, seemed uneasy in royal robes, and Min just as uncomfortable in a dress. More than that, though, they kept glancing back at the damane trailing behind Fortuona, whom Berelain had seen twice before. The dark-haired woman looked far too thin and pale in her grey dress, her eyes conveying a general sense of sullenness. At least she did not thrash at the chain and scream the way she had the first time Berelain had seen her, right after Tarmon Gaidon. Berelain still had not worked out who she was; she could be neither Ayyad nor Aes Sedai. Some unfortunate noble, perhaps, who had not even realized she could channel until she was leashed.

“Sit, Lilli,” Fortuona told the damane. Looking pathetic, Lilli crossed her legs and sat on the floor. “Greetings to the First Lady of Mayene from the Empress. I have come on a matter of serious import. The omens predict a grave danger arising in a far corner of the world, and I seek your aid, and that of Prince Galad, in investigating it.”

“There’s something up on the Land of Madmen,” Mat cut in. “It’s dangerous and it’s old and there’s no bloody way the Empress, may she live forever, will get to go deal with it in person if we use Seanchan troops. Think the Whitecloaks can help us, Galad?” Fortuona gave him a warning glare.

“Should the Empress, may she live forever, risk herself in such a way?” Berelain asked, a bit bluntly, to draw just a hair of her ire from Mat. Only a hair.

The Empress replied with perfect equanimity. “The omens require it.”

“More importantly, Lilli is our best hope of handling the matter, and who else is going to get Lilli to cooperate?” Mat’s grin was far too fixed, far too lopsided. Why would Lilli not obey any sul'dam who held her leash?

Galad raised an eyebrow. “Why do we need any particular damane for this?”

Mat glanced at Fortuona, who sighed and twitched the a'dam’s chain. “This damane may remember something about the danger,” Lilli said emotionlessly. “This damane was once called Moghedien.”


	4. Chapter 4

“ Very good, Lilli.” Fortuona’s smile hid much, but it was not false. Lilli was the greatest proof that the a'dam must exist, the last survivor of the men and women wbo had nearly destroyed the world for their ambitions. Her training was not progressing quickly-how could it?-but it was progressing. “You may have a sweet.” She offered a bit of toffee. Lilli took it with some reluctance, but she took it. Small steps. “Now you begin to see that it can be done.”

Lilli prostrated herself. “When you have believed for centuries that a thing is impossible, Great Mistress, it is hard to unlearn.”

“Of course. But you can do it, can’t you.” This was one of the problems. Lilli had much to teach as well as learn, which forced Fortuona to listen to her. You could never hold as much authority over your teacher as there should be between her and a damane.

Lilli nodded eagerly. Today she had unraveled her first Gateway, and there had not been so much as a puff of air as it dissolved.

“Now is your turn, Lilli. You will explain again in different terms why an a'dam cannot be made for a man to use.” Duplicating the Domination Band had proven easier than expected, and though the copies were not as powerful, that was turning out for the better. There was much less feedback, among other benefits, so that the damane would never gain control over his sul'dam.

“A man can be part of a link, Great Mistress, and a man can control a link. But he cannot *initiate* a link. That is why the Domination Band was dangerous. It is easier for a woman to control the circle the fewer men there are in it. I cannot explain that part any better, Great Mistress. But many larger sizes of circle require that there be more women than men for a woman to lead at all.”

“But not all.” Fortuona mused on that before discarding it. The a'dam allowed no other circle than itself. “Wait. The feedback. Could it be increased instead?”

Lilli frowned. “I suppose so. But then the man would take control much s- Oh.” Now she looked green. “That was very clever of you, Great Mistress. It had not occurred to me.”

“Of course, Lilli. I am your sul'dam. You must be alert, and answer my questions intelligently, but it is far from surprising that I should be the wiser of us. You see this?”

“I do, Great Mistress. You still will not be able to control a man with another man, though. They cannot link at all.”

Fortuona allowed herself a tight smile. “Nor can a woman be forced into a link against her will. That is, without an a'dam. We will find a way.” Lilli was far too certain about what could and could not be done. If only more of the Forsaken had been taken alive as damane…. A futile wish, of course.

“Why, Great Mistress? Why do you need more sul'dam when there are never enough damane to go around?” Fortuona scowled. Such effrontery. Lilli had certain moods….

“That is not your concern, Lilli.” Except…why *did* she do it? Certainly everyone deserved the chance to exercise their talents, but how many would truly get to do so? Even if she conquered every land in the world the number of damane would fall again after this generation. Unless the next Empress chose to train some of those who could be taught…but who would do that willingly? The idea was disgusting. It was vile. It was…. “No breakfast tomorrow, Lilli. I know you said that to unsettle me. Make me believe you will not do it again, and you may have lunch. Now we will go back to your kennel and you will rest.”

Was it really even true? Could she choose to touch saidar herself? Of course she would never do such a thing.

Of course not. 

*****

Moghedien opened her eyes in Tel'aran'rhiod. The Seanchan knew nothing of the Unseen World. Fools.

The Empress thought her largely cowed. Well, she had been for a time. A brief time. But then she had remembered there was no a'dam here, and no way now for her captor to know she came here. With a little effort she could have Tuon’s life and soul. And she would. All in good time. 

Twelve fresh faces appeared around her. “Welcome. Four years ago to the day I found Jamina and Risi weeping here because the Great Lord had not freed them as He promised. I have trained you here. You know weaves and techniques of the dream known to no one else living. We are ready to begin.

"The Bore was drilled when I was young. It can be drilled again. And then you will rise in one leap from slaves and animals…to the Chosen of the Great Lord of the Dark. No one expects us. No one will see us until we strike.

"Are you with me?”


	5. Chapter 5

Amys did the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. 

“Tonight I am not your teacher. That honor belongs to another.”

The apprentices looked around expectantly. They were very new, so new it was hardly safe to have them all here at once. But trained dreamwalkers were so rare, and untrained ones being found so frequently now, there was no way to teach them one on one. She had a hard-faced older Shienaran woman here. There a damane with odd sallow skin and curious narrow eyes, huddled behind the others. Off to the left stood Han’s greatson! Perhaps the strangest face she saw in this group of twenty or more was the Sea Folk girl, yellow eyes gleaming above deep brown cheeks. Perhaps a third of the apprentices had those eyes, but they were most striking on her.

“Tonight you will be taught by Perrin Aybara. Attend.” And she sat down.

*****

Amys smelled like cornered prey as she handed the class over to him, no doubt because he was a man. Wise Ones were every bit the equals of the Women’s Circle for that. Light, he felt like the one cornered! He was no teacher.

Most of the apprentices were women, though the ones who could speak to wolves were about evenly divided. Whether the first was by blood or the result of Aiel bias he had no idea, but Elyas had laughed when he asked about wolfsisters. “Boy, maybe here most women are too rational, too connected to human things to hear wolves talking, but don’t count on it, or think it’s that way in all lands. The wolf soul is about what’s in your spirit, not what’s between your legs.”

He did wonder where the Sea Folk girl had– “At the Last Hunt,” she murmured, a crossbow appearing briefly in her hand. He nodded, a little shocked. Had she heard him? Elyas had said it only worked that way with actual wolves.

This was a sorry lot, especially the three Aes Sedai, all flickering through different outfits and sometimes faces, but no doubt he had done the same at first and never noticed. “You think a man can teach us?” one of the Aes Sedai grumbled.

Well, time to show what could be done here. “Who said any such thing?” Perrin pictured himself as a perfect double of Amys. Light, but he felt silly! No sillier than the complaint, though. “How can you know who’s teaching you when you can barely keep your own face?” He glanced at Amys and found her sitting cross-legged in his body. Her face was perfectly content, betraying no sign of the agitation he felt, but then if she allowed that to show she’d no doubt lose track of her chest hair or something of that sort too.

“Maybe I’m a man,” he said in Amys’ voice. “Maybe I’m a wolf.” For a moment he let himself become one, dropping to all fours. “Or maybe you are.” Perrin fixed the Aes Sedai that way in his mind. She struggled–he could see her form trying to shift–but could not break his trained control.

The Sea Folk girl giggled. Oh. He had not quite restored himself to Amys’ shape; his body was right, but his face was his own. Well, that could be his next step. He released the Aes Sedai. Shuddering, she brushed at her arms.

“It’s easy to say, ‘I don’t have to worry about people changing me. I’ll just change myself back.’ You can see that’s not as easy as it sounds. Not only can someone hold you in another shape, they can change your mind as well. Once you’re stunned, or stupid, or an animal in mind as well as body, you’ve already lost your chance.” Even the Aes Sedai were paying attention to him now.

“How do we defend against that?” the Sea Folk wolfsister asked. Light, she was pretty. She smelled…musky, though.

“The most important thing, the thing I had so much trouble with at first, is to know who you are. When you know that, know it in your heart and bones, no one can force something false on you. I broke Lanfear’s Compulsion that way.” He did not say what it had been, or that it had not exactly broken. The Sea Folk girl gave him a pitying look anyway. How did she seem to know what he was thinking? Perhaps she smelled him?

She shook her head slightly. *I can, but I also hear you. Can others not?* The sending carried that same scent of wolf musk. What was going on with her? He shook his head, as much to clear it as to deny her.

“Perrin Aybara,” Amys asked, “is something wrong?”

Faile would be furious with him. Furrows down his back, clawing. His teeth on the she’s neck, gently but not too gently…

No! Not…what was happening to him? He was not a wolf, not really. He loved Faile. He loved…

“I have to go, Amys. I’m sorry.” She’d never let him teach again, but–

Perrin fled from the dream.


	6. Chapter 6

Warning:NSFW. Also, abstract discussion of rape.

el'Nynaeve n'al'Meara Mandragoran clenched her teeth and clutched her braid. “I won’t hear of it, Lan!”

Her husband, her Warder, the king of Malkier, hunched his shoulders. “It is custom, Nynaeve. It has been custom since the Borderlands rose from the Breaking. Older women taught young men what they need to know. Older men, young women. Surely you see the logic of it. It meant that when you came to your husband or wife, you knew how to please them.”

Light burn her, she did. “Husband, I do understand. I see how it must have happened and why the Malkieri thought it was right. But it *wasn’t*, Lan! It was disgusting beyond all reason and it was wrong! You told me about your *carneira*, how she manipulated you with that relationship as a weapon. You were too young. She had too much power over you.”

“My wife, must we discuss that?” Nothing else could make him flinch that way.

“We must, if it’s what it takes to make you see reason.” She threw him a bone. “Lan, I know how much it means to you, and to the Malkieri, to restore custom. And you should, where it makes sense. You deserve that. But not in this respect. Not here. Some ways are meant to change.”

al'Lan sighed. “I will publish a decree that no one below the age of majority may be awarded a *carneira*. But Nynaeve, you must know that many will see it that way–as a reward they are being denied.”

She sniffed at him. “I’m sure they will. Young men think like randy goats! But it isn’t, Lan, no more than a Two Rivers girl being bamboozled into running off with a merchant guard because she doesn’t know the world yet.” Baena Aymora had done that when Nynaeve was sixteen, and two years later had come straggling home, half-starved and heavy with a child who died being born. There was no freedom in that, and only the bitterest of educations.

“Peace, wife. I will try to explain to them. I will try.” From his tone, he did not expect much success. One more bandage she found herself slapping over a wound that needed Healing, or at least stitches. But a bandage was better than nothing.

*****

Elayne rolled over in her bed. She did not want this. She wanted the oblivion of sleep. And yet it meant she could feel something. She let the masks fall.

The red flame of Rand’s desire filled her, and the moist warmth of Min’s. She let her hand slide beneath her nightgown. She wanted to sleep, not just till dawn but for the rest of the Age,yet part of her realized the wrongness of that want, and this was the only remedy she could find. She wished Aviendha were here. She had shockef herself with the ability to feel desire for a woman, but her sister-wife had reassured her that it was often so with bonded sisters, unlike those naturally born, of course. Aviendha was at Rhuidean, though, as she usually had to be, tending to her children or her apprentices.

In Elayne’s mind, Min quivered and exploded, but release evaded Elayne. The bone-deep weariness and numbness made matters difficult even as it made her crave some kind of pleasure all the more.

She was not sure how Rand had come to Min this time. Frequently she was not. Border patrols were tight and growing tighter, and Rand could no longer Travel under his own power. Nynaeve had tried so many times to Heal him, yet it seemed something was different about burning out after all. He had not minded. Min erupted again in her head, and Elayne reached–no. So close and yet so far. Like the four of them.

She heard the children stirring in the next bedroom. Mother’s milk in a cup! If they woke now, and she had to mask the bonds–worse, if she failed to mask them, which could happen if strong emotions distracted you…. Elayne embraced the Power and thrust her fingers deeper. That sensation was enhanced as surely as any other. Saidar was enough, and she plummeted. The world went briefly white. That.was stronger, too, enough that many Sisters avoided it. Pleasure that strong often became pain. Dimly she felt Rand and Min join her, shared in their pleasure as they felt hers.

When the world solidified again she realized she could hear little feet running. Light, had she cried out? Probably, yet just as likely Igraine had felt her touch the Power. No one had yet explained it, but all Rand’s children had been able to channel from birth, if very faintly at first. Bloody ashes, the Light had granted that much! No cookie jar was safe without a Warding, though.

“Mommy, mommy!” Elayne steeled herself. Another early day begun, another day with her children, whom she adored. Light save her from them.


	7. Chapter 7

Lan felt old. Of course he did; he was old. Nynaeve could make him feel young again, for a brief time; it was so much of what he loved about her. But afterwards, he returned to being himself–a man alone, a man used up by a war that had finally ended.

He gazed through the gap in the unfinished castle walls and saw a new war building, a war in which he could once more fathom honorable men and women on opposite sides. Malkier’s unforeseen tomorrow was out there, rioting against the queen, golden crane against red wolfhead, and it was those he had valued most who were denouncing el'Nynaeve as a soft southerner who would see their land made weak.

Lan genuinely wished he understood his wife’s Southlander scruples. He had avoided her in the baths of Fal Dara, but not because he thought it wrong to see a woman in her bath, if she permitted. Yes, Edeyn had abused her relationship to him. Any relationship could be abused; what did their ages have to do with it?

Nynaeve seemed so certain of her case that he had gone along with her. Now, just as he had predicted, the young men and women had taken to the streets demanding their rights, and his wife had retired to her chambers muttering and trying to tug her braid out of her scalp. He could back down and seem weak, he could stand firm and risk an uprising…or he could compromise on something else.

Those who held fast to old Malkier sought another enemy. With the Shadow gone, the popular target was tbe Seanchan. Aes Sedai were held in higher esteem here than anywhere else save Tar Valon. That such an attack would break the Dragon’s Peace was quickly being forgotten. Lan believed in the treaty, but he believed more strongly in freedom–as did many who supported the queen. Fighting the Seanchan might be his best chance to hold the kingdom together.

And what else was he good for, if not another war?

*****

Rand al'Thor looked out upon a world he had never seen.

The ship rocked gently beneath him as it approached the Great Harbor of Cantorin. There were no vast lakes in his part of the world, no inland seas, and he had grown up leagues away from the ocean. Now he gazed out across an endless undulating plain of water and felt, at last, that he understood what it was like to be Aiel…now that he no longer was.

He was no longer ta'veren. No longer a channeler. No longer, in any meaningful sense, the Dragon Reborn. His destiny was fulfilled, his penance complete. He was free.

What did he do now?

He had spent the last several years traveling here and there. He had seen the Great Rift, explored the former Blasted Lands, even snuck aboard a Seanchan courier to see their homeland. Now he was on his way home. If he had a home.

The Aiel always said they did not fear water, only respected it. Rand watched the harbor grow closer and felt no fear. He had died and now he lived again; what could there be for him to fear?

Rand inhaled deeply from his pipe. There were things he could do, but he had no understanding of how he did them. It was not channeling, he knew that much. Sometimes he thought the first Aes Sedai must have been in this position, barely able to see the weaves of their talents, nothing yet formulated and set down, barely knowing what they could do. With a thought, he snuffed his pipe. With a thought, he sent a gust up the skirts of the Sea Folk girl at the tiller. He supposed it was mischief, but he could summon no interest in her legs. She turned a cold, yellow-eyed gaze upon him. There were more like Perrin and Elyas? He’d talked about how Perrin had come by his powers, before the end, but not how they worked.

The more he saw of the world, the less real it felt to him. Like a pasteboard mask, perhaps. And he had put a hole in it with his finger. The things that men built were called artifice. Was the world the Creator built somehow more natural? If it was not, was anything? People. Surely people were real.

He held up his pipe. If it wasn’t real, why did he enjoy smoking it?

The pipe crumbled to dust between his fingers. Rand leapt to his feet in alarm. Only, what could he do about it? The pipe was gone. Could he bring it back?

Was the world, in fact, his dream? The Aiel had thought so. But then, what did that make him?

Rand stood, brushed the dust off his hands, and went to get his things. Never mind the pipe. He would find another somewhere.

He had business on Cantorin.

*****

Moiraine thought she finally had her apartments right. Tall wood-paneled furniture with just a hint of gilt, some line drawings on the walls, a maze rug. Different from the current Cairhienin style, but then she was from an older Cairhien, one untouched by Andor and far less fascinated by the Aiel. Her rooms were a small thing to make right, but she wanted to believe she could go on to bigger things from there.

Light burn those two for saddling her with this, now of all times. No. Best not to think ill of the dead, and Egwene had died as one of the great, heroic Amyrlins whom tales would be told of for centuries. As for that insufferable older woman, she had managed to squirm free again by retiring into the Kin, all Oaths removed.

Moiraine hefted her mountain onto her shoulders, opened the door, and stepped out onto the balcony.

“She comes! The Breaker of the Seals, the Flame of Tar Valon, The Amyrlin Seat!!

*****

Note: Lan’s perspective on the institution of *carneira* should not be mistaken for my own. Lan is a product of the Malkieri diaspora culture and its ideas about both adulthood and consent, and even he understands that some of its effects have been negative. Without being moral, it served a purpose in his homeland, whose people justified it in terms of that purpose.


	8. Chapter 8

There were no harbors here.

Even the little wharves where a few of the natives left their reed boats were swiftly washed away by the tides, and certainly the Retribution for Falme could not make landfall there. Mat selected a little sheltered cove surrounded by towering cliffs. No one was likely to come at them here, or even expect them to stop

“Suffa,” Tuon said calmly, “Gateway.”

With a show of perfect meekness that Mat had finally come to take for reality, the former Amyrlin centered her gateway precisely on the gangplank.

Mat raised his ashanderai and pointed it at the gateway. There was a series of orders from subcommanders that he tried not to notice, but in moments morat'torm were streaking through on their mounts.

The trees he could see from here were like nothing he knew from any land, tall and branchless, with broad flat leaves at the top. Tiny colorful birds flitted about between them silently. No large animals were visible from here, not even through the gateway, but he knew better than to believe none were around.

“Darbinda?” Precious was being thorough today. No real surprise there. Min shook her head. Like him, she acknowledged her Seanchan name when she had to, but used her old one with most everyone else. “Nothing new, your Highness.”

“Anren, let us see what Suffa sees.” Mat winced. What little he had known about Foretellings had suggested they came from nowhere, but the Seanchan knew how to induce them. Oh, often enough they were about next week’s lunch, but they would come.

Elaida trembled, at first with fear. Her Foretellings had never been common or easy to decipher before her captivity, and she still required some rather intense…stimulation. Fright gave way to something else, a sort of fit, and her eyes rolled back in her head.

“A world born dead that cannot die, it drinks the life of stars;

"A poison bite that strikes unseen survives from ancient wars.

"Two ancient evils join anew, and phoenix pyre shall burn,

"The raven sacrifice herself and empire’s fear unlearn.”

Mat had his eye on Lilli before Elaida had finished the second line. As prophecy went, that was almost too easy: keep Moghedien away from whatever they were hunting at all costs. Of course, there had to be a twist; there always was. But what did Tuon have to do with it, and what was this other thing?

Tuon was on the ball as always. “Lilli, what do you know of this? The prophecy speaks of you.”

Lilli, predictably enough, put her face on the deck. “I swear that I know nothing, Great Mistress.”

Tuon scowled and placed a single foot on Moghedien’s neck. “Does Suffa lie? ‘Two ancient evils join anew,’ she said. She links you with the other.”

Moghedien quaked, but her cheeks grew red rather than pale. “I would never have used it! Only four of us knew, and we kept it from the others. Balthamel and Ashareth found it, and Rahvin and I learned later.”

“Who in the Light’s name is Ashareth?” Mat started, but Tuon’s question was likely more important.

“Why would you keep knowledge of a weapon from the other Forsaken, or the Dark One?” She removed her foot and let the woman rise.

Moghedien’s face contorted, and she spat out, “Because Ishamael would have used it! The Sunkiller was made before us, in some other Age. It would have destroyed everything. Not existence, maybe, but the solar system and everyone in it. Nothing would be left to rule.”

Tuon scowled. “The what?”

“All the worlds around our sun,” Moghedien growled. “Darkness within, you know nothing. It’s not a weapon made for a war on one world.” Tuon sent her a lash or a bite or something, and she closed her mouth and whined like a slapped dog.

“How does it work?” Tuon’s voice was cold and skeptical.

“I swear to you, I never learned that. Balthamel and Ashareth kept that close between them. I might not have understood the answer anyway. Ashareth could likely have told you, if she’d survived to this Age.”

For a moment Tuon’s face was stone. Then she noticed the officer on his knees beside her. “Toy, I believe they have cleared a campsite for us. Let us go.”

In spite of that declaration, Mat had to wait while several Whitecloak guards passed through the gateway first, including one with a Dragon pin. Galad must’ve sent that one to tweak Tuon’s nose. Mat wasn’t entirely easy himself. His luck hadn’t been sour since Tarmon Gaidon, not exactly, but it had been far more erratic. If this ended in Whitecloaks fighting Seanchan, he’d have to bet on the Seanchan, even with an Asha'man on the Whitecloak side.

Up on the cliff the forest picked up at once. He was standing in a narrow zone of tangled vines and scattered trees, but by two paces away the sky would be invisible above a leafy ceiling. Soldiers were trying to hack a path into the forest with their swords. The trees hung heavy with vines, and if you looked closely at them the leaves were strangely shaped. Something whooped at them in the branches and went crashing away. Not a man…he thought.

“Light,” Min grumped. “Is there even a way through here? Maybe there aren’t any people past the beaches.”

On a whim Mat hopped up onto a leaning tree. It was broad enough to walk on and sturdier than it looked. He frowned up at the interlocking branches. Several of the ones leading away were just as large. “If I had to live here….Send some guards up. With damane,” he added belatedly. Tuon smiled at him.

“What kind of people live in trees?” Elaida muttered as she passed him. Her sul'dam glared, and Mat wondered idly if he should try to help her escape. Light, she’d put Rand in a box! But now she was in one herself, or as good as.

“Ogier,” he suggested, not too seriously. These trees weren’t nearly big enough, but he could imagine Ogier living like this.

“Going by the stories we should’ve been stopped by mad people by now,” Min wondered.

Mat gave her his best shrug. “You should know about stories at this point. I wonder if there are Ogier here, and if they’re mad too. Mad Ogier would be a sight.” Not one he wanted to see, mind. Min made an incredulous face at him.

They’d reached a layer of mostly-level branches. Leaves closed in around them like arched green hallways. The pathways tilted slightly upward, maybe a foot every few paces, but the slightly flattened branches stayed consistent. He was sure now that someone else must be using these paths, though he saw no sign of bent or trimmed twigs. The going was just too easy.

Without warning Anren came to a halt. “Wall,” she said tersely. “Stone, I think. Or something like stone. Suffa.” She tugged Elaida’s leash.

“Stone,” Elaida confirmed. “But the One Power shaped it. And look.” She pointed to a bit of script etched into ths wall.

“What does it say, Suffa?” the sul'dam asked.

Elaida frowned. “There must be more I cannot see. This is 'blood’ or perhaps 'family’. And over here it says 'restricted’.”

“We cannot be here,” Moghedien said suddenly. “It says 'genetic’.” Everyone looked at her in confusion.

“It says what?” Tuon showed no irritation, only bafflement.

“It means…never mind. We can’t go this way. Aginor worked here.”

****

AN: I swear I had come up with the Sunkiller before seeing The Force Awakens. Its much simpler. You’ll see.


	9. Chapter 9

Mat fingered the hilt of his ashanderai for the forty-seventh time. He couldn't help it. Moghedien just kept twitching as if she were about to jump out of her skin, and it wasn't for whatever Tuon had done to her to make her finally go inside.

Moghedien had said the dilapidated building was a "research center", which he'd finally understood to be like one of Rand's schools. People came to learn here, but mostly it was a place where totally new things were invented. What that had to do with the shattered glass bottles that lay all round, though, or the corroded hulks of metal with nearly-flat transparent panels (not glass; it wouldn't break) was beyond his understanding.

"Hold," Galad said. "Get me Child Versine. This can't be three thousand years old."

A narrow blade of a man slipped forward to stand beside the Lord Captain Commander. "Indeed not," he said in a rough voice that blurred and slurred like a used whetstone. "These are old," he said, pointing to tracks of crushed glass, "but a few years old, not ancient. If anything natural came here, they'd be gone by now."

"How old?" Tuon asked.

The Whitecloak bowed double before answring. "May it please the Empress, may she live forever, I believe these were made before Tarmon Gaidon. They have been weathered by several seasons, but more importantly, look here." He pointed to a groove gouged into the floor. "They begin here."

"A Gateway," Mat said. "But none of us came here before the Last Battle. We didn't know this entire hunk of land existed." He turned to look at Moghedien and realized all other eyes had joined his.

The Forsaken gave him a flat look and set her foot in one of the prints. Her feet weren't small, for a woman's, but the footprints dwarfed hers. "Sammael, perhaps. Or Rahvin." She shivered on speaking Rahvin's name, for some reason. "Please, we should--"

The building shuddered under a hail of impacts, and whooping cries sounded from outside. Windows exploded under a barrage of stones wrapped in burning cloth. "Take cover!" Mat shouted. "Here come those madmen we've been hearing about!"

The soldiers crouched in defensive positions, but Elaida unexpectedly dashed away down a corridor, her chain momentarily forgotten. The sul'dam holding her leash was so startled as to be yanked from her feet. Tuon gestured instantly for the others to seize her, but Elaida reached what she was after first, picking up a blank-faced statuette from the shelf. She held it out toward her sul'dam, who sensibly took a step back, but instead of the horrible death beams Elaida seemed to be expecting, the ter'angreal sent the former Amyrlin into convulsions.

"Leave her," Tuon ordered angrily. The sul'dam sulkily unfastened her bracelet and retreated to the protection of the soldiers. "If you had controlled her properly you could have kept her. This is no one's fault but yours."

"May your Highness live forever," Mat aaid, "we have a bigger problem on our hands." They were surrounded by people clad only in some sort of leafy robes and loincloths, carrying only spears, which sounded like they should be easy pickings until you added in that the spears were thick as support beams and the people holding them were Ogier. "Me and my big mouth."

*****

Moghedien was patient. She was calm. She was...was terrified she wasn't going to last long enough to get to sleep.

The Ogier ignored everyone's attempts to communicate with them, even when Tuon ordered her to try speaking their own language at them. From their complete lack of reaction, she had to guess it wasn't a failure of understanding; they simply had no interest in talking to outsiders. The language *had* changed, but she was still able to make out about two words in three, which was better than anyone else was doing, even Cauthon.

"World tree fallen," she picked out. "Short-lifers lock Night (away?). New (something) come." So even here they knew the Age had turned, huh? Maybe it was best if they didn't figure out she was the Spider.

After a debate she couldn't quite follow and anguished protests from some lifelong damane, the Ogier made the sul'dam remove their bracelets. It hardly mattered. Here as in most places, addiction or no addiction, Ogier chose to live in their steddings. Then they scattered their prisoners through several treehouses, leaving the damane alone together and her chained next to that abominable Suffa.

"I always thought you'd be the last survivor," the fallen Amyrlin said. It took Moghedien a second to realize that not only was she being addressed in the so-called Old Tongue, the damane wasn't speaking in the primitives' ludicrous accent. In fact, she sounded like...an Incastar? "Ah, I see you recognize me. Take a moment. Think it over. Then tell me what happened, and how we recover."

Moghedien released the inhaled hiss she'd been holding. He had no idea of her betrayal. For him, it had never happened. "The war is over, and we lost. Still, there are measures left to take, and therefore I have a plan...if you don't ruin it, Rahvin."


	10. Chapter 10

The queen of Malkier looked the queen of Saldaea in the eye. "He's going to do it, isn't he?" She had felt like this, sometimes, dealing with Rand. This...inevitabilty.

Faile sighed. "I couldn't talk him out of it, Nynaeve. But I changed his strategy, at least. He isn't going to attack Ebou Dar. Lan will keep the Dragon's Peace. In a way."

"What is he going to--?" The king strode into the room as she spoke. His shoulders were held firmly; he was weary and trying to hide the fact.

"The Towers of Midnight," Lan said, "in Imfaral, are peace-holy to the Seanchan. By tradition, they've been unoccupied since the Consolidation ended. I suspect that is true no longer, but at least they are held by a claimant to the Imperial throne." He met her gaze levelly. "Not by a foreign invader."

"Faile, you said--!"

"Empress Fortuona swore to the treaty," Faile said. "But her writ means nothing across the ocean. Not yet, at least."

"She must respond if I hold the Towers, however," Lan said. "Just as I could not have allowed, say, a force of Aiel or Cairhienin to hold the Seven Towers without my express permission. It would be as much as forswearing the throne."

"How do you plan to attack a fortress on the other side of the Aryth Ocean, al'Lan Mandragoran?" She made the question as acid as her words could bear.

"I was hoping," he said calmly, "to have Aes Sedai aid, my wife. _Your_ aid."

*****

Yneth eyed the crystal columns nervously. The Aiel refused to discuss them, even other apprentices. The Dragon had revealed that they showed the history of the Aiel, that these fierce people had once, long ago, followed the Way of the Leaf. But how? What exactly did they do? And what made that knowledge kill?

If it was only the discovery that their people had been different once, Yneth decided, she should be fine. _Her_ ancestors had kept the Way.

She took a step.

\------

"Lost One! You may not pass this way!"

She was Rillin, Mahdi of the Blue Chain band of the Traveling People, and they were bound west, away from Shamara, wagons laden with silk.

Her husband leaned closer. "Did that Aielman speak to us, or has the sun cooked my brains?" The Aiel avoided the People, though if they wished to murder her whole band they would have no real chance to escape.

"Hush, Bari." She squinted into the sun. "We are headed for the Dragonwall. Why may we not pass?"

The tall, lean figure dropped from the rock and approached another step. No nearer. "Rhuidean is not for you, Lost One. It belongs to the Jenn. You must go further south. Do not force us to harm you."

"We mean you no harm," Rillin called out. "Why will you not trade with us?"

"Do not offend the eyes of the Aiel," the warrior said. "Least of all, the eyes of the Jenn." He turned his back on them. "Now go!"

With a frown, Rillin nudged her horses. "Giddap, Frost! Giddap, Sparkle!" No use talking to the Aiel. No use staying where they weren't wanted.

Was there any place where they were wanted? Perhaps one day they would find the Song, and she would know.

*****

Nynaeve walked through the corridors of the Stone of Tear. How long since she had come here? Ages, it seemed.

By Egwene's precedent, the Seanchan were a blood enemy to all Aes Sedai. For her to aid Lan's invasion was no violation of the Oaths. And yet...it seemed wrong, to casually circumvent the Peace that Rand had fought so hard for.

Her hand went to her necklace and the two rings that hung there. Lan's...and the other. _Need._

She was atop the battlements now. The need to avert a war brought her here? Brilliant moonlight shone down on her, and Nynaeve looked up.

Not one moon. Two. And the second shone pure white, unmarred as the Tower now appeared once more. Two moons? What did it mean? She needed more knowledge to understand what Tel'aran'rhiod was telling her.

_Need._

Nynaeve floated free, as if in the water, but she felt none on her skin. She felt nothing at all. Then pain, like a thousand stabbing needles. Breath burst from her mouth and nose. She opened her eyes, and felt the needles strike there as well. Stars, nothing but stars and that impossible pair of moons. No. A third had joined them, blue-green and bigger than both of them, shrouded in cloud....

That was the coastline of Tear. Not a third moon at all. She was looking down at the earth.

Nynaeve tried to gasp. Nothing. She needed air. Her lungs, her skin, burning. Air!

Air. She was breathing. A bubble of air, here where there had been none. Her vision seemed blurred. The pain lingered there. Somehow the emptiness had damaged her eyes.

 _...even worlds in the sky._ Moghedien had said that to her. The last Forsaken still alive and whole in mind, now that Graendal had died. Mesaana still lingered in the Tower, a few Browns and Yellows tending her in the futile hope they might awaken her mind just enough to learn.

Had Moghedien done this somehow? Called this moon? But it looked exactly the size it had been. The real moon was larger, closer to her. Perhaps the alien nature of Tel'aran'rhiod made the second moon seem close because of its importance.

Nynaeve closed her eyes, clutching the thought of air like a child might cling to a blanket. _Need._ Still she floated. _Need. Need. Need!_

Her shoes touched solid ground with a strange _clack_ , and she crashed down on her chest. She struggled to all fours, still forcing air to surround her. Her arms and legs strained against the weight. Her entire body felt heavy. Nynaeve opened her eyes.

The ground was blinding white and smooth as a tile floor, stretching out in all directions in a featureless plain. She ran her fingers along it. Here and there were faint traces of dust. That was all. A world nearly as empty as the space between it and the earth. How was that possible? What was it made of?

She touched it with a trickle of Power. Her jaw dropped open.

It was _cuendillar_. All of it.

*****

Yneth hesitated. Was it too late to turn back? The vision could be simply a thing that had happened, a point of contact between her ancestors and this place...or it could be a warning to her not to enter here. The columns sparkled in the sunlight, telling her nothing.

If she left now, it would be the end of her chance at building a bridge between her people and the Aiel. Rillin had accepted that failure, but Rillin had not known of their kinship.

Yneth stepped deeper into the columns.

\-----

Her name was Gwyna, and she was Aes Sedai. She stood on the last pace of the bridge that spanned the river, the bridge to the isle of Tar Valon, and watched the wagons approach. Her heart longed to climb aboard and leave this place, where the Ogier were building walls to close off the land and sky, but to do so would be to abandon her promises to the Amyrlin and to the Healers' Ajah.

The wagons rumbled to a stop, and her daughters emerged, supporting her son Daen between them. He staggered like a drunken man, his eyes half-closed. "The tea is working," Ivy said, "but he may say foolish things. Don't let them harm him!"

"Of course I will not," Gwyna said. "We may finally be able to help him here. Light send it so, Song send it so."

"He cannot return to Utopia," Wisteria warned, "not unless you find a cure. Is it really possible?"

"All things may be possible," Gwyna said, "and here we have gathered as many Aes Sedai as would join together. Perhaps between the Healers' and the Librarians' Ajahs, we might at last find a way to cleanse away the taint on saidin."

"And if the Purge Ajah get their way," Wisteria said, wringing her hands, "will they not kill him?"

Gwyna shook her head. "We have prevailed. At the worst, we will make him...gentle. Cut him off from the Source. I hope it doesn't come to that, but better than to let him abandon the Way in his madness."

Ivy kissed her brother on the forehead. "Fare you well, Daen. Fare you well, mother."

"Fare you well, daughters. May you follow the Song until you find it." She knew, within these walls, she never would.

*****

Nynaeve staggered across the impossible other world. She could see for what seemed leagues, even with her damaged eyes, yet all she saw was the same featureless white. How could she search an entire world?

She closed her eyes. _Need._

There on the horizon-- _Need._

Nynaeve put out her hand. The squat grey column of stone stood alone here, the sole feature of this empty world. Something...what was it? She touched the stone. It was smooth, too, but it had an oily texture. "I know this," she murmured. In the silence her voice should have echoed like thunder. Perhaps the boundary of the air made it seem quiet. "I haven't seen it, but someone told me about something like this. Symbols. There should be symbols." It was....

She stumbled and fell, hurting her hands. Everything was so heavy here. She tried to rise, but her legs didn't want to bend right. How badly had she hurt herself this time? Maybe she had better wake.

The World of Dreams held her fast. Nynaeve felt woozy, as if she'd hit her head as well. She felt around for bumps and found nothing. If anything her forehead felt too low and flat. She pulled her hands away. Her fingers were stuck together somehow.

A figure stepped around the stone column. A woman, slender, in her middle years, with hair cropped short.

"M-mog--" Her mouth wouldn't form the name.

"Did you think I would forget my promise?" the Forsaken spat.


End file.
